Postal banking in the United States and Japan: a comparative analysis docx

IMES DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES INSTITUTE FOR MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES BANK OF JAPAN C.P.O BOX 203 TOKYO 100-8630 JAPAN Postal banking in the United States and Japan: a comparative analysis Patricia Hagan Kuwayama Discussion Paper No. 99-E-18 NOTE: IMES Discussion Paper Series is circulated in order to stimulate discussion and comments. Views expressed in Discussion Paper Series are those of authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Japan or the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. IMES Discussion Paper Series 99-E-18 June 1999 Postal banking in the United States and Japan: a comparative analysis Patricia Hagan Kuwayama* Abstract This paper analyzes the experience of the United States postal savings, and compares it to Japan’s experience with a view to assessing the past and potential future role of postal savings in Japan. It finds that demand for postal savings deposits is explained, in both countries, mainly by two variables: price (interest- differentials) and confidence in private banks. Geographical accessibility in rural areas is of less, and diminishing, importance. It is argued that postal banking should be viewed as an alternative to publicly sponsored deposit insurance, as a means to assure households’ access to safe and convenient savings and payment services. Accordingly, the reforms undertaken in the next few years under the outline set out by the 1998 “Basic Law on the Reform of Central Government Ministries and Agencies” might best aim to restructure postal savings as a “narrow bank,” whose services are priced to fully reflect costs and risks incurred. Key words: U. S. postal savings, Japanese postal savings, deposit insurance, narrow bank JEL classification: G2, N2 * Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business This paper benefited from comments and suggestions of Thomas Cargill, Brian Gendreau, Yuri Okina, Hugh Patrick, Joseph Sommer, and Juro Teranishi. Kunio Okina and other colleagues provided invaluable help and encouragement during the author’s stay at the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. Outline of contents: I. Introduction and summary 1 II. The United States postal savings experience A. Conception and beginnings 5 B. Geography vs. other factors: Who used the system? 7 C. A time series model of U.S. aggregate demand for postal savings 13 D. Performance during banking panics: Historical and cross-section evidence 20 E. The demise of U.S. postal savings 25 III. Comparisons with Japan A. Origins and prewar experience 27 B. Postwar Japanese experience 33 IV. Implications for Japanese postal savings reform 39 1 I. Introduction and summary Japan is one of many countries that is reconsidering the role of its postal savings system as it prepares for the financial realities of the 21st century. Postal banks, which were introduced in most industrial countries during the second half of the 19th century or the early part of this century, are generally deemed to have served useful purposes in the past: They made deposit and payment services accessible to lower-income and non-urban households; provided a demonstrably safe deposit outlet in times of uncertainty about private banks; and may have raised household savings rates thus helping to fund both public and private capital needs. But, in every case, vast changes that have occurred in modern economies – including the spread of transportation and communications networks, the growing capability of private intermediaries to provide financial services, the spread of deposit insurance schemes for private banks, and central banks’ ability to avoid financial panics with monetary policy – have called into question the continued appropriateness of the postal bank’s traditional role. Japan is well behind other countries in addressing this need for change. The United States and Canada abolished their postal savings systems over thirty years ago, New Zealand and a number of European countries have privatized theirs starting in the 1980s and most other European countries have taken at least some steps to privatize or streamline their postal banks in recent years. 1 Being a laggard gives Japan the advantage of relevant experience that it can use to inform its own future choices, but so far the discussion of Japanese postal savings reform has made little reference to foreign examples. The United States admittedly is not the closest comparison: It started its postal savings system later than most, in 1910, and ended it in 1966. The U.S. postal bank was never 1 Taiwan and Argentina announced plans for privatization in 1998. See Elixmann (1992) for details on individual European countries’ reforms. Barth and Bartholomew document the related trend toward officially sponsored deposit insurance for private banks. Note that the United States and Canada were among the first to introduce the latter (1933 and 1967, respectively), as well as the first to abolish postal savings (1966 and 1968). 2 authorized to offer payment services, other than the money orders that post offices had always sold, in contrast with Japan and many European countries where the post office has long been a major provider of giro services 2 . And, the size of the U.S. postal savings system, even at its height in the 1930s and 1940s, never approached that of Japan. But even so, the motivations for establishing the U.S. postal bank, and the purposes it actually served for several decades, were essentially similar to those in Japan. And, the arguments that led to abolition also resemble discussion now heard in Japan. This paper contends that a good deal can be learned from examining the role – for better and for worse – that the U.S. postal bank played in the first half of this century. And, if something can be learned from this, most distant, comparison, it probably means that study of other cases would prove even more useful for Japan. Several main observations are developed in the discussion below. First, while geographic availability of depository services to areas not served by private banks was always a prime justification of postal savings – in the United States as well as in Japan and Europe – it has not proved to be the major source of demand for postal savings, even if it was important to a few rural customers. From the start, the U.S. clientele of postal savings was concentrated in urban areas among immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, a group that had most reason to seek the safety of postal savings after their experience with unreliable “immigrant banks.” In Japan, as well, efforts to document the special relevance of postal savings to households in remote areas have generally found its importance to be limited. And, as in most countries, this factor also has declined over time. Second, the demand for postal savings – at least in terms of changes over time – is well explained by a simple deposit-allocation model based on relative interest rates and the level of confidence in private banks. Other variables, such as changes in convenience or 2 This term is used to mean direct payments to or from a bank account, that is without requiring an intermediate exchange into cash. 3 other product features offered by the postal bank and its competitors, are important but most of the variation is explained by those two factors. Indeed, the demand schedule estimated in this paper for the United States turns out to be quite similar to that found for prewar Japan in an earlier study by Teranishi (1977). Documenting such a relationship for postwar Japan is more difficult, since most of the period saw no depository institution failures and nominal interest-differentials were essentially fixed until deposit rates were liberalized in 1992 and 1993. But the evidence is consistent with the existence of both price and confidence responses, if account is taken of tax changes and the “implicit put option” feature of the Japanese postal bank’s main product, the Savings Certificate (Teigaku chokin) deposit. This model does not necessarily explain the very different levels of postal savings use in Japan and the United States: Their share of total personal deposits has ranged upwards from 20% during most of the past 70 years in Japan, whereas it never got much over 5% in the United States. 3 However, the evidence reviewed below strongly suggests that this is a function of the products offered and price: The Japanese postal bank has been allowed to provide a much broader array of services than its U.S. counterpart, offers them in every town and village of Japan, and has expanded its products and convenience of use over time In addition, it has had more leeway to offer advantageous prices (or interest rates) relative to private banks than was true in the United States. In some ways, the Japanese postal bank actually faced less restrictive regulation than its commercial competitors – which, for instance, required Ministry of Finance approval, not often granted, to open any branch in a new location in response to demand. This study shows that, in normal times, households do respond to the attraction of a government-sponsored depository if it offers at least the same return as available at 3 These ratios are not perfectly comparable, as the U.S. share is of all time and savings accounts, including those of companies. However the difference is still very big. 4 private banks. And in times of financial turmoil, when depositors became wary of private banks, they have been willing to place funds in postal savings at significantly less than the privately offered return. There have been times when this helped to stabilize the situation, as postal savings were redeposited directly to solvent banks reducing the amount of cash drain out of the banking system. But there were other times – perhaps the most important example being in the United States in the 1930s – when shifts to postal savings became disruptive because such recycling did not occur and important lending intermediaries were deprived of funds. So, even if it is desirable that the postal bank should attract funds in a confidence crisis, the systemic benefits will not be felt unless the “exit” side of the system is designed to assure prompt recycling. And, even if such recycling is sufficiently automatic to keep the postal bank’s role on the lending side completely neutral, distortions can still result unless prices are set to reflect fully the actual costs and risks of the products offered. One approach to both problems might be to revive the 19th-century European idea of postal savings as a sort of “narrow bank”: a bank that would invest only in credit-risk-free government securities, would hedge its interest-rate and liquidity risks in those markets. Such a bank would not be subsidized by other taxpayers: that is, it would offer only such deposit rates it as would allow it to cover all these costs. If these conditions were met, it is possible that the postal savings market would shrink drastically or even disappear. But it is also possible that a postal bank can play a beneficial role as an alternative to mandatory insurance for household deposits. This was, in fact, the reasoning that led postal savings to be accepted in the United States in 1910 – a time when the moral hazard problems involved in government insurance schemes were widely recognized, and postal savings was regarded as a less dangerous alternative. However, neither of the requirements – full-cost pricing and neutral recycling – has been consistently met in the United States or Japan, and the record of postal savings’ 5 contribution has therefore been flawed in both countries. This does not necessarily mean that a suitably designed system could not work to the public benefit. It does mean, though, that the discussion about how to design such a system needs to focus more directly on these issues than it has, so far. II. The United States experience A. Conception and beginnings 4 The U.S. postal savings system had a later start than most, as well as an earlier end. Advocates, from the 1870s on, had cited the success of postal banks in most of the leading countries of the world in arguing for such a system to encourage household saving in the United States. 5 But commercial bankers successfully opposed this as an unnecessary incursion into the province of private business, until the banking panic of 1907-1908 brought the issue of safe banking facilities for ordinary people to national prominence. It became an issue that was debated throughout the 1908 Presidential election campaign, in which Republican William Howard Taft defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The incumbent Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed the idea in 1907 and the Republican Party included the proposal in its platform for the 1908 election despite the continued opposition of the American Banking Association. The Democratic Party platform called for a national guarantee of personal deposits, following what several States had already done starting in 1907, and endorsed postal savings only as a second-best alternative. The Republicans continued to oppose national insurance as too radical, stressing the moral hazards of such a guarantee as well 4 The history of the U.S. postal system is chronicled in several places: Schewe (1970) covers the entire period although he does not treat some issues of interest to an economist; Kemmerer (1917) is an account by one of those who created the system, and gives a good sense of its conception and early years; O'Hara and Easley (1979) is an excellent analysis of the 1930s; and Zaun (1953) gives some of the later part of the story, reflecting the concerns of private bankers. 5 Seventy-two bills were submitted to the U.S. Congress for this purpose between 1873 and 1909, not counting the 14 that were entered during the 1909-1911 Congress that eventually passed the Postal Savings Bill of 1910. (Schewe, pp. 188-200). 6 as the undesirably close national government supervision that it would entail. 6 But they were conscious of the need to head off growing support for deposit guarantees, as one Western State after another joined the march toward mandated insurance schemes. The Republicans' solid majority in the 1909 Congress, combined with the new President's high-profile support, thus assured passage of the Postal Savings Bill of 1910. Among the large industrial countries, only Germany – which during the 19th century had developed an extensive system of municipal savings banks serving a similar purpose – waited longer to establish postal savings. One motivation that was lacking in the United States was the need to help finance the national government. 7 In fact, the absence of a sizable outstanding national debt posed a problem in designing a system that would not compete with commercial bank lending activities. Sensitivity was high, as well, to the possibility that a nationwide postal bank might drain funds from local to big-city financial markets. To avoid this, the law provided that postal savings were to be deposited in solvent commercial (National or State) banks within the same city, town, village, or locality as they had been gathered, in proportion to those banks’ capital. The placements were to be backed by suitable collateral in the form of public securities “supported by the taxing power,” according to the discretion of the nationwide postal savings system’s board of trustees (consisting of the Postmaster General, the Treasury Secretary, and the Attorney General). Only when such local placement was not possible could the trustees elect to place the money in banks elsewhere within the same state, and if that outlet was not available in Federal government securities. 6 Taft, in his acceptance speech to the Republication national convention, called it a proposal to "tax the honest and prudent banker to make up for the dishonesty and imprudence of others." He also worried that supervisory oversight would deprive private banks of their independence and, in essense, force State banks to become part of the National banking system. (Schewe, pp. 52-53.) 7 Earlier, though, this had been an explicit motive for postal savings proposals that were advanced in the 1870s, when efforts were being made to refund the national debt that resulted from the issue of Greenbacks during the Civil War. [...]... standards in 1895, the savings banks took off again, far surpassing the growth of the postal savings system and of ordinary banks during the next five years The overextended savings bank industry went through a severe crunch during the financial panic that followed the Sino-Japanese War in 1901, and the postal savings system’s growth far outstripped that of private savings banks during the next several years... time when commercial bank interest rates had fallen well below that level And, in fact, the figures show that postal savings did have at least a modest interest advantage from the mid-1930s until the early 1950s, and this advantage was at its greatest during the 1940s (chart below) 14 Chart 3 Interest advantage of postal savings % (2% rate on postal savings less average rate on bank time deposits)... the late 1890s At times – mainly during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and again at the time of World War I in Europe – a significant portion was also held in monetary-quality foreign assets The practice of channeling postal savings, along with other moneys placed with the Deposits Bureau, into lending via government-related banks began in 1898, as part of the 34 The U.S postal savings system had 12,820... concentrated in New England and one or two Midwestern states Building and loan associations (the predecessors of 7 what are now usually called savings and loan associations) had experienced rapid growth but mainly served urban households, especially in a few cities with large GermanAmerican populations Support for postal savings was strongest in agrarian parts of the United States Indeed, of 72 bills that... deposits at the time The 2% rate was never changed during the entire history of the postal savings system; the 2 1/4% rate was raised once, to 2 1/2% in 1934 The stated purposes of postal savings were essentially the same as had been advocated for decades in the United States and other countries: providing safe, interest-bearing deposits to savers who had no banking facilities within easy reach, or who had... The lesson was repeated with the panic of 1907 and – most emphatically of all – again in the great banking crisis of 1927 Teranishi's analysis of the experience between 1900 and 1940 found that the relative demand for postal savings deposits was well explained by a combination of interest-rate differential and bank safety concerns His model allowed for substitution among time and savings deposits at... since separate data are not available for the two classes of private bank) and the confidence variable (the number of bank failures as a proportion of existing banks) had correct signs although they were not always significant; the combined adjustment ratio was about 0.17 (implying about a 6-year adjustment period); and the coefficient of the wealth variable (measured as total time and savings deposits... in taking household savings.19 This interesting episode is well described in the 1979 article by O’Hara and Easley, as already noted 19 Aside from postal savings, this includes deposits at mutual savings banks, savings and loan associations (usually known as building, or building and loan associations in the earlier period), and credit unions (which came into existence after 1933) Unlike the category... shrunken savings bank industry but it was once again accompanied by an accelerated shift to postal savings The decade or so that began in 1920 was of course a turbulent one world-wide, and Japan's increased involvement in the global economy had exposed it to fallout from booms and busts in the United States and Europe Also, the leaders of Japan espoused a brand of laissez-faire philosophy that would be considered... Currency, Annual Reports 3 Impact on other depository institutions Failures were far less common at saving (or building) and loan associations than they were at banks, but they started growing rapidly a few years earlier, in 1929, and continued until the late 1930s Commercial bank failures, on the other hand, subsided quickly after 1933 (chart 7) O'Hara and Easley, in fact, attribute part of the thrift institutions' . States and Japan: a comparative analysis Patricia Hagan Kuwayama* Abstract This paper analyzes the experience of the United States postal savings, and compares it to Japan’s experience with a view. DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES INSTITUTE FOR MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES BANK OF JAPAN C.P.O BOX 203 TOKYO 100-8630 JAPAN Postal banking in the United States and Japan: a comparative analysis Patricia Hagan. to assessing the past and potential future role of postal savings in Japan. It finds that demand for postal savings deposits is explained, in both countries, mainly by two variables: price (interest- differentials)